Electronic apparatuses or terminals are used for various applications. For instance, portable wireless communications terminals are used for providing telecommunications between users and base stations, such as for transmitting voice or data communications.
Such electronic apparatuses may have different geometry. The particular geometry of an electronic apparatus is also referred to as its form factor. For instance, an electronic apparatus may have a bar form (also called “slab” or “candybar”), where the apparatus has an approximate rectangular parallelepiped form. Other form factors include the flip form factor (also called “clamshell”) wherein two elements are connected through a hinge and can rotate along an axis in the plane of the two elements, the swivel form factor wherein two elements can pivot around an axis perpendicular to the two elements, and the slide form factor wherein two elements are able to slide with respect to each other.
European patent application EP1667408 relates to a portable terminal including a main housing and a sliding housing coupled thereto such that the sliding housing can slide to expose or hide a keypad module. The sliding movement of the sliding housing is converted into an up-and-down movement of the keypad module to overcome the difference in level among the upper surface of the sliding housing, the display device, and the keypad.
European patent application EP1638298 relates to a mobile terminal wherein, in an opening event of an upper housing, a key operation section automatically ascends and, in a closing event of the upper housing, the key operation section automatically descends to be stored in a lower housing.
It is desirable to improve the ease of use and convenient character of electronic apparatuses, notably as far as the ease of access to their functionalities and as far as their compactness is concerned.